St. Francis - The Milwaukee Bucks open a four-game trek Wednesday night against the Toronto Raptors and it would be easy to make the case that it is a do-or-die trip for the Bucks' playoff hopes.

Or, maybe not.

"I hate to sound like a broken record," coach Scott Skiles said after practice Tuesday at the team's training facility. "But every game is the same. It's the same all year long. That's why you play 82 of them. We just need to win one game. We need to go win the game (in Toronto) and see what happens from there. Obviously, you can't win all four until you win the first one. So we just need to focus on this one game, try and win it, and see what happens."

A total of 11 games remains on the Bucks' regular-season schedule, including the Wednesday night encounter with the Raptors at the Air Canada Centre, and a playoff berth is still within the Bucks' reach.

Because they won only two games on their recent six-game home stand, the Bucks are going to have to do it the hard way and make up some ground on the road, where they are 11-24 this season.

After playing the Raptors, the Bucks will travel to Orlando, Miami and New Jersey. The Magic and Heat are both trying to improve playoff positioning and the Nets, like the Bucks, are in the hunt for the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference.

The Bucks, who lost to Portland on Saturday in the final game of the home stand, have had three days to prepare for the Raptors and Skiles says the team has worked on "pretty much everything" during that time.

"I guess we're fortunate to have time to get a little rest and work on the things we wanted to work on," Skiles said. "Now we've got to hopefully transfer it out on the game floor."

Said forward Richard Jefferson, "We're disappointed by a couple of our past performances but we look to get out on the road and hopefully recover. This is a very important road trip for us and we're going to try and make up some ground."

The Bucks are 2-1 against the Raptors but this is the first meeting for the teams since Toronto traded Jermaine O'Neal and Jamario Moon to Miami for Shawn Marion.

The Raptors are coming off a 24-point home victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, their most lopsided victory of the season.

"It's a different team than we've play before," Skiles said. "O'Neal is gone, Moon is gone, Marion is in. It's not the first time this year we've played an opponent that's been a different team since the last time we played them. So I would throw out the window anything that's happened before."

The Chicago Bulls are emerging as the team to beat for the final playoff spot in the East.

The Bulls are 34-38 after their victory over Detroit on Tuesday and hold the tie-breaker over the Bucks (31-40). While the Bucks will be traveling this week, the Bulls will be at home for three games and, including the game against the Pistons, will play eight of their final games at home.

"We can't worry about what the Bulls are doing," forward Charlie Villanueva said. "We can only control what we can control. So let's worry about us. Let's not worry about what the Bulls are doing. We can't control what they're doing. So let's worry about Toronto and then we move on to the next game from there.

"We have to try and get one on the road. This is a very important game for us. From now on, we're going to have to try to win as many games as possible. We're down to 11 games and we're two or three games behind. We've got to get this first one."